He breathed out a half-laugh, ending in a sigh.  “But loving her is sweeter than to inform creation!” he added, aloud.

The crocodile made no reply.  Balder went on, fingering the telltale ring and talking with himself; the earth, meanwhile, slowly turning her warm shoulder to the western sun.  A still half-light filled the conservatory as with a clear mellow liquor, and the rich leaves, and blossoms stood breathless with delight.  The painfully rigid contraction of Balder’s features was softening away; he was coming into harmony with the sensuous beauty of the scene, or its refined voluptuousness—­serene, unambitious, content with time and careless of eternity—­interpreted his altered temper.

Be happy in the sunlight, O men and women!  Love and kiss,—­bow down and worship each the other!  Who can tell of another joy like this?  Everlasting knows it not, for only the flavor of death can give it perfection!  Save for the foreshadow of midnight, noonday were not beautiful.  But when night comes, sink ye in one another’s arms, and sleep!  Heaven on earth is a richer, stronger draught than Heaven; but pray that in vouchsafing death, it cheat ye not of annihilation!

He had forgotten that there was anything ugly in the world, or that the blindest cannot always escape the Gorgon.  He recked not the risk of bringing a being such as Gnulemah face to face with modern life, nor bethought him that the secret in his heart would still be nearer it than love could come.  Neither, during this fortunate moment, did fear of discovery harass him.

Oddly, too, it was not to domestic comforts,—­the love of wife, children, and friends,—­nor yet to the absorbing duties of a profession, that Balder looked for a shield against inward trouble.  Hope held him no more than fear; his happiness must consist in freedom from both.  He thought only of the Gnulemah of to-day,—­unique, beautiful, untamed, divinely ignorant; but whose heart walked before, leading the giddy mind by paths the wisest dared not tempt.  The sounds of her voice, the shiftings of her expression, her look, her touch,—­he recalled them all.  He centred time and space in her.  Change, new conditions, succession of events,—­these came not near her.  Their life should know neither past nor future, but abide a constant Now,—­until the end!

His lips followed his thought with soundless movement.  Handsome lips they were,—­the under, full, but sharply defined from the bulwark-chin; the upper, slender, boldly curved, firm, yet sensitive;—­the mouth was a compendium of the man’s physical nature.  His eyes, large and almost as dark as Gnulemah’s, albeit far different in effect,—­were now in-looking; the pupils, always extraordinarily large and brilliant, almost filled the space between the eyelids.  His hair clung round his head in yellow curls; the dark dense eyebrows arched at ease.  With velvet doublet and well-moulded limbs, in the enchanted evening-glow, he looked the ideal fairy prince,—­noble, wise, and valiant; conquering fate for love’s sake.  They were brave princes,—­they of old time.  But one wonders whether the giants and enchanters, nowadays, are not stronger and subtler than they used to be!